The Navis Bluetracker monitoring and reporting software has been declared “MRV Ready”, following a Validation GAP Analysis Audit conducted by the classification society DNV GL. According to the validation report, the Bluetracker MRV module supports three of the prescribed four monitoring methods and collects all MRV-relevant data.

The module is able to relay details of CO2 emissions as well as other data relevant to reporting, thus enabling a simple data exchange between various applications. In doing so, Bluetracker MRV meets the requirements of the new EU MRV regulations both in combination with the system’s own Bluetracker Manual Reporting solution or with an external reporting system integrated via an API interface.

The MRV regulation has been in place since July 1, 2015 and requires ship owners and managers to monitor, report and verify annual CO2 emissions for ships with a gross registered tonnage of 5,000 register tons or more entering European ports. The data monitoring process, which is based on the ships’ voyage data, will go into effect on January 1, 2018. The annual CO2 emissions of a ship are confirmed by an external verifier and relayed to a central database managed by the European Maritime Safety Agency. Annual emissions will be published by the European Commission for the first time on June 30, 2019.

As a first step, a ship owner and manager must describe the measuring and data collection method in a ship-specific monitoring plan. In accordance with the MRV regulations, the monitoring plan must be submitted to an accredited verifier for validation by August 30, 2017.

The Bluetracker MRV module allows the consumption data collected on board to be compiled into CO2 reports – using the Bluetracker manual reporting or an external reporting system. With the Bluetracker MRV software, the emphasis is on ensuring consistent data quality to produce valid annual CO2 reports in an efficient manner. A data validation engine monitors incoming data in real time and checks the physical and ship-specific properties for plausibility against characteristic machine curves, consumption curves and hull models. In addition, the data are checked for their chronological order and consistency to ensure there are no time gaps or multiple entries in the reports. An automatic notification function alerts the crew and superintendent ashore if errors exist.

“With the impending August 30th deadline, it’s imperative for ship owners and managers to ready their systems now for the ongoing collection and monitoring of CO2 levels for all voyages into, out of and between EU ports,” said Guenter Schmidmeir, Navis VP & General Manager, EMEA. “Bluetracker MRV is well positioned to meet this need, offering Navis customers automatic aggregation of all MRV-relevant data in real-time, instead of at the end of the monitoring period. Additionally, MRV reports for an entire fleet can be generated by one person, and can be easily submitted to the European Commission via the API interface.”

The Bluetracker MRV module can be used for all ship types and is available now.

A list of accredited verifiers, a template for a monitoring plan for downloading, frequently asked questions and answers and further background and product information can be found at www.bluetracker.de